


Tony Stark's Lab for Wayward Mechanical Engineering Interns

by hale_and_hearty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Getting Together, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Interns & Internships, Secret Identity, Tony Stark Has A Heart, and the avengers don't know that peter is spiderman, au where steve and tony work things out like adults, dumb gen z humor, excessive use of the em dash, instead of starting a civil war, no plot just a series of increasingly ridiculous conversations, peter parker is bad at pretending not to be spiderman, so infity war and endgame never happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hale_and_hearty/pseuds/hale_and_hearty
Summary: The day the interns find out Michelle Jones’s age is the worst day of Peter’s life.//Peter and MJ are mechanical engineering interns for Stark Industries, and amidst Peter's increasingly ridiculous attempts to keep his secret identity a secret, their fellow interns decide they should date.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 20
Kudos: 204





	Tony Stark's Lab for Wayward Mechanical Engineering Interns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emptythoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptythoughts/gifts).



> blanket disclaimer: i’m an english major and know approximately zero things about mechanical engineering or biochemistry or whatever the hell kind of science so y’all are going to just have to bear with me here. dedicated to terri who, when i said this was going to be a teen wolf au, said, and i quote, “appease ur goddess.” i’m powerless to argue that point so here we are

The day the interns find out Michelle Jones’s age is the worst day of Peter’s life.

There’s six of them in total. Peter, of course, and Shuri from Wakanda who Peter fought viciously for the one sophomore-level intern position before Stark Industries decided to give them both an internship. And Ned Leeds, Peter’s best friend since forever, who, by the grace of taking college credits in high school (while Peter was a little too busy with, uh, certain  _ extracurricular activities  _ to take duel credit classes) earned the junior-level position, and Harley Keener, Stark’s resident whiz kid who’s gotten an internship at Stark Industries every summer since he graduated from high school, and Cassie Lang, who got the freshman-level position  _ maybe  _ because her dad is Ant-Man and maybe just because she’s wicked smart. 

Michelle Jones — MJ, she tells them flatly on their first day in the lab — is the final intern. No one knows how old she is because she refuses to say, but they’re pretty sure she’s a master’s student, with all the commanding authority of Pepper Potts even when she shows up to the lab with Starbucks, her hair in a messy bun, wearing ripped jeans. Once she puts on her labcoat, she’s all business, and every time someone asks her a question (“What’s your major, MJ?” or “MJ, when do you graduate?” or “MJ, just how old  _ are  _ you?”) they’re met with a blank stare. 

Peter is equal parts in love with her and ready to Fight Her.

Their rivalry started on the second day of the summer internship program. Peter got to the lab at six a.m. on the dot, with a cup of coffee already in his system and another in his hand, all bright-eyed and ready to get started on his research, thinking he’d have the lab to himself for a few hours since their intern hours didn’t technically start until ten, although Mr. Stark had given them all-hours access passes. The light was already on in the lab, though, and when Peter entered the room, MJ was there, hunched over her desk at the computer, one knee drawn up into the chair next to her. She cut a glance at him and said, “I’m surprised you’re in the lab this early.” Then she turned back to her computer, and didn’t say anything else to Peter for the rest of the day.

Peter let irritation build in him the entire day. He left the office at five with all the other interns, except MJ stayed behind, waving them off and saying, “I want to get more lab time in.” 

Peter had wanted to stay to prove that he loved the lab just as much if not more than she did, except that he was Spider-Man so he actually had to, like, do Spider-Man things, so he went on patrol and fumed the whole time. Maybe he was a little more aggressive than usual with the perpetrators, not that anyone would even notice.

He didn’t sleep that night, and instead, he rolled into the lab at four a.m. MJ wasn’t there yet, and Peter settled in at his desk and worked for an hour, until MJ arrived with Starbucks and dark bags under her eyes at five.

They made eye contact, and Peter said, smirking a little, “I’m surprised you’re in the lab this early.”

Thus began their (probably one-sided) rivalry. 

Peter found out pretty quickly that patrolling until two a.m. and then getting up to be at work by four was unsustainable, even in conjunction with his five p.m. to nine p.m. naps every day. So he started coming in around five, always just before or just after MJ, and then later, and then a little later, and then finds that they’re both rolling into the lab at eight a.m. every day. MJ has even figured out Peter’s coffee preferences, and passes it off to him when they step into the elevator that will take them up to the lab. Peter waffles between accepting it as proof that MJ is as in love with him as he is with her and assuming she’s figuring out a way to use it against him in the future. When he can’t figure it out, he starts bringing her some of Aunt May’s banana bread in the mornings, and pretends it doesn’t fluster him to see MJ’s cheeks go a little pink when they make the coffee-and-baked-goods exchange every morning outside the elevator.

All of this seems to be just a natural part of their rivalry, alongside them vying for Mr. Stark’s attention when he makes his weekly visit into the lab to “see what the youngsters are cooking up these days” and fighting each other for timeslots in the biochem lab and stealing tools from each other’s work stations. At lunch, Peter and Ned sit with Harley and Cassie and Shuri and MJ disappears to do who knows what who knows where, and they all make bets on how old MJ is and whether or not she’s going to murder all of them before the summer’s over.

“She’s been interning here  _ at least  _ as long as I have,” Harley asserts, deftly picking apart his turkey sandwich with long fingers. Despite all the money Stark Industries brings in, the cafeteria is still a cafeteria. The food could be better, but it’s free, so none of them complain. 

“That makes her, what, twenty-two at the youngest, then?” Cassie asks. She chose to eat from the salad bar today and looks like she regrets it as she pokes at the limp lettuce with her fork. 

“But that would make her a senior like Harley,” Ned says. “Wouldn’t they have told us if there were two senior interns?”

Shuri and Peter size each other up for a moment, as if remembering their cross-continental rivalry before they were both accepted into the program. 

“Maybe,” Shuri allows after a moment, finally looking away from Peter. “She could just as easily be a master’s student.”

“She’s a little too intimidating to be an undergrad student,” Cassie agrees. “Plus, I heard Mr. Stark ask her last week where she was planning on going for her doctorate. She must be at the very end of her master’s program, right?”

Everyone agrees that MJ  _ must  _ be at the end of her master’s program, and isn’t it odd that there’s only one master’s intern but five undergrad interns, and Peter keeps an eye on the news playing on low volume in the corner of the cafeteria. They’re covering footage from the night before, when the Avengers handled an encounter with the Sinister Six in downtown Queens. Peter had actually been on the scene first, because everyone knows that the Sinister Six are  _ Spider-Man’s _ problem, but the Avengers stumbled into the middle of it while on some kind of team-building group outing and took it over from him. 

Mr. Stark, looking much bigger in his Iron Man suit than he does in the lab, had clapped a solid metal hand onto Peter’s shoulder and said,  _ Why don’t you leave catching bad guys to the pros, bug boy?  _

Peter’s still kind of smarting over it. He’s a firm believer in the Twitter hashtag #TonyStarkHasAHeart, but also he was irritated enough that he went home and changed his Iron Man comforter out for his Captain America one as the ultimate form of petty revenge. He’ll probably hold a grudge until Mr. Stark’s lab visit later that afternoon, when Mr. Stark will say something charming and kind and Peter will forget he was ever annoyed to begin with.

Sometimes, he regrets deciding to keep his identity a secret. It’s not like he wasn’t  _ offered  _ a place with the Avengers. Mr. Stark had hosted a press conference four years ago and stood up on stage with all the other Avengers lined up behind him and announced that, if Spider-Man was interested in joining, he could come down to Stark Industries, sign the Accords, and then reveal his identity to the public. 

Peter and Ned screamed about it for approximately twenty minutes before they were reminded exactly why Peter  _ couldn’t  _ be an Avenger. Namely, that Peter was a fifteen year old boy and they probably wouldn’t let him join once they knew that. But also to protect Aunt May and stuff. (And also also because he would probably, like, spontaneously combust if Captain America ever really  _ looked  _ at him.)

“Peter?” Ned asks, nudging him, and he blinks back to the conversation at hand. His own sandwich is largely untouched on his tray. “Did you want to place a bet on MJ’s age?”

Peter opens his mouth to answer, but Harley beats him to it. “No way,” he says, shaking his head. “Peter can’t bet, he has insider information.”

“Insider information?” Peter repeats.

Cassie nods enthusiastically, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, because you and MJ hang out all the time. You could just ask her and then win the bet.”

Peter blinks. “MJ and I don’t hang out.”

Shuri says, smirking, “Then what  _ is  _ it you two do in the lab by yourselves all morning?”

“Uh,” Peter says, blushing, “Work?”

“That’s the right idea, Parker,” someone says behind him, and two heavy hands land on either of his shoulders. Peter doesn’t even have to turn to know it’s Mr. Stark, and that makes him blush harder. “Cafeteria’s the wrong place to do it, though. You kids coming back to the lab, or…?”

He lets it trail off like a question — at best, a  _ suggestion  _ — but they all scramble up to their feet anyways, rushing to get rid of their leftover food and return to the lab. 

MJ, because she’s MJ and either the bane of Peter’s existence or the love of his life, is already in the lab when they get back. She doesn’t even have a sandwich or anything on her desk. She just glances up at them, pushes her glasses up her nose, and waves at Mr. Stark before ducking her head back down to focus on her project. 

Because she’s ready — and this is truly the most irritating and enticing thing  _ about  _ her, she’s  _ always  _ ready — Mr. Stark goes to inspect MJ’s project first. Peter isn’t entirely sure what she was assigned, but he thinks it has something to do with biochemistry. Ned mostly does coding, Harley and Cassie generally handle all of the robotics, and Peter and Shuri usually end up trying to answer questions like “can you make a replacement suit that protects me from concussion damage when I go flying headfirst into a brick wall at eighty miles per hour” (no) and “can you make Cap’s shield do that thing that Black Panther’s suit does where it absorbs the power behind a hit and then reflects it so when it’s hit again that person goes flying” (yes, but that was all Shuri — she did teach Peter  _ how  _ she did it, though, and he was honestly a little frightened of her in that moment and still  doesn't really understand why she wanted an internship at Stark Industries when she learned all this stuff back in Wakanda, anyways ). 

Today, Peter has his actual project — “Nat wants boomerang knives, Parker, I don’t — just figure out how to make it happen without getting yourself killed” — half piled under his pages upon pages of notes on testing the tensile strength of his webs and how much power he can put into his web shooters before a web to the face actually kills someone. He’s shoving the papers into his desk drawers and underneath his notes on the actual boomerang knives (fifty-fifty chance Natasha would get her hand cut off if she used them in their current state, so they’re nowhere close to a working prototype right now) when he hears Mr. Stark say, “What  _ are  _ you doing for your birthday next week?”

Peter’s head jerks up, and he’s pretty sure all of the other interns perk up, too, five heads swiveling towards MJ and Mr. Stark in unison. MJ flushes red, but if Mr. Stark notices, he says nothing, just looking down at MJ with a patient expression. 

“Um,” MJ says, fidgeting with the corner of her notepad. “I don’t know. My mom will want to do something, probably.”

“You’re turning nineteen?” Mr. Stark says, casually, like he’s not straight up  _ blowing everyone’s minds right this second.  _

MJ’s cheeks get even redder. “Yup,” she says, and crinkles the notepad paper so hard it tears a little. 

“So, no drinking, then,” Mr. Stark muses. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “I hear about you drinking before twenty-one and I will personally come collect you from the bar and make you write an apology letter to your mother.”

Then, like it’s nothing, he just moves on to Ned, who is staring at MJ with his mouth slightly agape. Behind him, Cassie slides a twenty dollar bill into Harley’s work station. Harley looks gobsmacked even as he pockets it, which means that, even though he must have guessed the closest to MJ’s actual age, he was still  _ way off _ .

While Mr. Stark talks to Ned, Peter finishes clearing up his station, getting the paperwork ready on the boomerang knives (nicknamed “Okay, Boomer” because that’s what Shuri says to him every time he complains about the project) to go over it with Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark spends about fifteen minutes with Ned, asking about his weekend plans and politely not making fun of him when he says he’s going to be making a Lego Death Star, and then Mr. Stark comes to stand next to Peter.

“How’s it going with Nat’s knives?” Mr. Stark asks, grimacing like even  _ he  _ knows how bad of an idea these things are. 

Peter says, “I’m scared I’m going to cut my hand off if I try to test them,” and Mr. Stark laughs.

“Maybe don’t test them yourself,” he advises. “Let me know when you have a working prototype. We’ll get Nat down here and let her try them out.” 

Peter has a vivid mental image of meeting Natasha Romanoff as Peter Parker and her hands getting hacked off because of something  _ he  _ made. He’s not sure he actually wants to be there when she tests the Okay, Boomers.

“Will, uh, will do,” Peter says, and Mr. Stark nods, proudly, and starts to move on and then stops, picking up one of the papers on Peter’s desk.

Peter realizes with a sinking stomach that he did not, in fact, hide away all of his notes on the web formula.

Mr. Stark says, “What’s this?” with this voice that is perfectly neutral. 

Peter’s mouth opens and closes and opens and closes for a minute, and then he squeaks out, “Uh — spider silk. Kind of. A prototype. Not part of Ms. Romanoff’s knives or anything, sorry, that’s actually — a personal thing, I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark, I was working on it before intern hours and — please don’t fire me.”

Mr. Stark blinks. “Technically, as an intern, you don’t officially work here.”

“You do pay me, though,” Peter says. His voice is really high. Is it hot in here or is it just him? His eyes dart around the room to see the eyes of all the other interns on him. MJ shaking her head, Ned rolling his eyes heavenward, and Shuri marking the Catholic cross across her chest and forehead and mouthing, “R.I.P.”

Mr. Stark holds Peter’s gaze for another long, weighted second, before his eyes drop back down to the paperwork in hand. He says, no inflection, “Did you break into my personal lab.”

Peter’s heart stops. “No!” he exclaims. “Mr. Stark, I would  _ never  _ — ”

“Because,” Mr. Stark continues, cutting him off, “you’ve got nearly the exact formula for the webbing Spider-Man leaves all around New York City, here. Yours actually looks like it might be a little stronger than what the webslinger is using. So. I repeat,  _ did you break into my personal lab _ ?”

“No,” Peter repeats, softly this time, feeling supremely chastised. He looks at Ned a little desperately, but Ned, too, is now making the sign of the cross. Great, Peter thinks. He’s about to be fired from a job he doesn’t even technically have. “I, um. I’m a fan. Of Spider-Man. Like a super fan. I’ve been trying to recreate his webbing for a while. Um. But I think his is like. Organic. Or something. Um. I haven’t been able to recreate it  _ accurately  _ yet but I was hoping maybe — ”

“Stop,” Mr. Stark says, holding up a hand. Peter’s mouth clicks shut. Mr. Stark closes his eyes, rubs at his brow, and then drops the page back down onto Peter’s desk. “I don’t ever want to see you doing this shit on the clock. Am I understood?”

Peter nods frantically. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, again, Mr. Stark, I didn’t — ”

“Stop,” Mr. Stark repeats, and again, Peter’s mouth shuts immediately. Mr. Stark gives him a hard look, and then says, “That being said, if you’re interested in looking at Spider-Man’s  _ actual  _ webbing, you are allowed to come by my personal lab  _ after hours  _ so long as I’m there to supervise. Okay?”

Peter is stunned silent, so he just nods, very quickly. “Good boy,” Mr. Stark says, and then he claps Peter on the shoulder — the same way Iron Man had clapped Spider-Man on the shoulder the night before — and bustles along to Shuri’s desk, saying, “All right, Princess Shuri, what kind of Wakandan technology did you hijack for me today?” and Peter, all the tension leaving his body at once, lets his head smack against his desk. 

He almost pokes his eye out with one of the Okay, Boomers. All around, it’s a pretty terrible day. 

It gets even worse when Mr. Stark finally leaves the lab.

The other interns look back and forth between Peter and MJ, like they’re not sure who to start in on first. Peter gives Ned another desperate look, and Ned takes that as initiative to say, loudly, “MJ, you’re only  _ eighteen _ ?”

MJ turns bright red. Maybe she’d hoped Peter’s awkward interaction with Mr. Stark would distract everyone from the revelation of her age. Peter feels bad for her, even though they’re sworn enemies, so he says, “Do you think Mr. Stark was serious about letting me into his personal lab?”

Everyone’s eyes bounce over to him. Ned shakes his head, like he’s thinking about what a waste that distraction just was, and Harley, grinning from ear to ear, says, “Peter, we didn’t know you were a closet Spider-Man fan.”

“Personally,” Cassie says thoughtfully, “My dad and I have always been kind of bummed that Spider-Man doesn’t actually, like, summon spiders or anything. It makes him kind of lame, right?”

“Right,” Ned says, nodding emphatically, and Peter glares at him. 

“I’m getting coffee,” MJ blurts out, and stands so fast her chair goes skittering backwards. She looks at Peter and says, “Do you want to come with me?” and Peter stands so fast that his chair goes flying, too. 

“Yes,” he says quickly. “Yes, absolutely.”

They all but flee the intern lab.

In the elevator, MJ says, “Thanks for, you know. Trying to distract them.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Peter mumbles. “I feel like it’s more important for you to maintain your coolness than it is for me to maintain mine.”

“Peter,” MJ says, seriously, “none of the interns have ever thought you were cool.”

But she smiles at him and gently knocks her shoulder into his, and then they just stand there like that, shoulder to shoulder as the elevator takes them down to the ground floor. Peter’s feelings for MJ careen wildly from “fight her to the death” to “oh my god I’m in love,” which isn’t strictly  _ new  _ except for the fact that there are no lingering feelings of resentment or the desire to climb the side of Stark Tower just to beat her to work in the morning.

“So,” MJ says as the elevator doors slide open, a mischievous smirk on her face, “Spider-Man, huh?”

Peter groans, and MJ cackles as they make their way out of the building.

*

When they return to the lab, MJ makes a swift exit, coffee and all, to get to the biochem lab for her timeslot. Peter sits back down at his work station, stares at the Okay, Boomers for a second, and when he looks up, all five of the interns are staring at him. 

“So, MJ’s eighteen, huh?” Peter says, because he’s not above throwing her under the bus to avoid talking about his “obsession” with Spider-Man as long as she’s not present. “Who won the bet?”

“Technically Harley,” Ned says with a frown. “He guessed she was twenty-three, which was the closest.”

Peter looks at Shuri and Cassie, who make equally disgruntled faces, and says, “Uh, what were the  _ other  _ guesses?”

“I said twenty-four,” Shuri mutters darkly.

“Twenty-six,” Cassie says, rolling her eyes. 

Ned, embarrassed, says, “I went high and said thirty.”

Peter snorts a laugh. “I feel like the betting pool got kind of out of hand.”

“No such thing,” Harley says dismissively. “Now we’re just betting on how long it takes for you and MJ to start dating.”

Peter is not laughing anymore. He feels himself turning bright red. “I, uh. What? Why would you — ”

“We know you have a crush on her,” Shuri interrupts. “You make sure to be in the lab whenever she is and you bring her banana bread.”

“I’m not allowed to bet on this one,” Ned volunteers with a shrug. “Insider information.”

Peter feels himself getting increasingly flustered. “Workplace romances are discouraged at Stark Industries. Obviously. And, uh, I don’t — I just bring her banana bread because she brings me coffee.”

“Exactly,” Cassie says, pointing at him. “We thought she probably looked at you as, like, an annoying younger brother, or maybe a lost puppy, but now that we know you’re the same age — ”

“ _ I’m six months older  _ — ”

“we fully support your awkward attempts to woo her,” Cassie finishes, ignoring Peter’s indignant interruption. 

Peter looks around at the four of them, all giving him big, smirking grins, and feels equal parts flustered and horrified as he says, “But we’re sworn enemies.”

Ned starts laughing. He is, of course, the only one that  _ knows  _ that MJ is Peter’s archnemesis. He’s also the only one who knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Peter is also a little bit in love with her, because Peter is weak and can’t keep anything from his best friend. 

“Ah, hate romance,” Shuri says knowingly. “Even better.”

“Enemies to lovers,” Cassie agrees with a smile.

Harley says, “Does MJ know that she’s your sworn enemy, or…?”

“I need to work on the Okay, Boomers,” Peter says instead of choosing to acknowledge  _ any of that _ . He turns back to his work station, hunkers down, and starts tinkering with his prototype.

Because she’s the devil, Cassie says, “Are we just going to gloss over the fact that Peter is a Webhead?”

Peter lets his head drop back down onto his desk. The Okay, Boomer stabs him in the cheek a little.

*

Peter and MJ meet in front of the elevator like they always do. Her hair is in a messy bun, and her sunglasses are perched precariously amidst all the curls. She’s wearing a jean jacket and sneakers, and hands Peter his usual coffee order in exchange for a Ziploc bag of Aunt May’s chocolate chip cookies. 

“No banana bread today?” she asks, arching a brow.

“Aunt May said she’s tired of baking bread, so. We’re onto cookies now.”

MJ smiles at him. “I’m sure they’re just as good.”

When they step off of the elevator into the lab, they both split up towards their separate work stations. Peter starts pulling out his webbing analysis notes, because he’s not technically on the clock so theoretically that means it’s fine to work on it, and MJ boots up her computer to do whatever it is MJ does, and she takes a sip of her coffee and says, “How are the webs going?”

Peter glances up at her. “Uh, fine. Good. I mean. Like Mr. Stark said, I haven’t actually, uh,  _ technically  _ recreated the webbing. Um. I’m close, but, you know. Not exactly  _ there  _ yet.”

MJ nods sagely. “What are you going to do with the webbing once you’ve recreated it?”

That’s not a question Peter was expecting. Actually, he wasn’t expecting  _ any  _ questions, because normally they’re both very focused on their work as soon as they enter the lab. He looks down at his notes, opens and closes his mouth a bit, and then says, “I mean, I guess I’m going to figure out how to swing around rooftops with it?”

MJ snorts. “You’re going to need to figure out some kind of way to shoot it if you really want to be like Spider-Man. He doesn’t just carry around a lasso of webbing.”

“That would be highly inefficient,” Peter agrees, and her eyes crinkle with mirth and Peter is not, absolutely is  _ not _ , swooning right now. “It gets all, uh, sticky, when you try to bunch it up like a lasso.”

If possible, MJ looks even more amused than she did before. “Why do I get the feeling that you, at one point, went around and collected samples of Spider-Man’s webs from around Manhattan and tried to create a lasso out of them?”

Peter’s cheeks burn. She’s not even  _ right _ , is the thing, but she’s also...not wrong? In the early days, Peter  _ had  _ experimented with a lasso web. It was highly inefficient, and very sticky. He wasn’t really able to make it stick to rooftops without sticking to itself. Hence, the web shooters. Way more efficient.

“Maybe a gun,” MJ says with a smile, making finger guns and pretending to shoot at Peter, and he has to seriously wonder for a second how any of them really thought she was so much older than them. “Although I’m not sure you have the upper body strength to swing around like that. Or that g-force wouldn’t, like, totally destroy your internal organs if you tried.”

“Compression suit to maintain even distribution of blood flow,” he says, grimacing, “but, uh, I haven’t really figured out how to control the whole ‘rupturing organs’ thing, yet.” 

The actual truth of the matter is that, by all means, Peter’s organs  _ should  _ have all ruptured by now from how many times he’s slammed into the side of a building or quickly changed directions while web-slinging. And also, all his bones should have broken from his many falls. There’s not really a scientific answer as to why he’s not dead yet, and he can’t very well say, “radioactive spider equals super healing somehow and possibly a flexible endoskeleton but I’m hoping I never have to find out if that’s true or not,” so uncertainty about avoiding the particular issue of his internal organs is the best MJ’s going to get out of him.

MJ starts to really grin, then. “You’re such a nerd.”

Peter blushes and shrugs, because okay, yes, he kind of is. He says, “So, you’re turning nineteen, huh?” and it’s her turn to blush a little. “How have you been interning for Mr. Stark for so long if you’re, you know, so young?”

“It’s only been four years,” MJ says with a roll of her eyes, like that  _ doesn’t  _ mean she was fourteen when she first started interning at Stark Industries. “I won the ninth grade science fair at my school, and the grand prize was a tour of Stark Industries. I met Mr. Stark and he asked about my project, and then just...gave me an internship. He’s let me come back every summer since then, so I guess he doesn’t totally hate me.”

“Are you kidding?” Peter says, incredulously. “He loves you. You’re his favorite intern.”

She blushes and shakes her head, and Peter adds, “Also, I clearly went to the wrong high school. I would have killed someone to meet Mr. Stark in ninth grade.”

He technically met Mr. Stark in  _ tenth  _ grade, in a brief and awkward encounter in Brooklyn where Mr. Stark tried to demask him and Peter had to web him up to a lamppost to escape. Mr. Stark hasn’t tried to demask him since then, but Peter’s not sure he’ll ever really let his guard down around Mr. Stark when he’s in his spider suit, no matter how much he looks up to the guy as a role model.

When the other interns come in two hours later and see Peter and MJ chatting quietly, still, they all wait until MJ’s back is turned before making kissy faces at Peter. Peter’s pretty sure he’s going to die from embarrassment.

*

After lunch, Mr. Stark waltzes into the intern lab with his hands in his pockets, and all of the interns freeze. He never visits twice in one week, much less two days in a row. 

Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to notice their terror. He just stands in the middle of the room and says, “Parker, with me,” and then turns on his heel and walks right back out. Peter, looking to the other interns for help and having all of them avoid making eye contact, trips along behind Mr. Stark to his inevitable doom.

Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything in the elevator, and Peter watches as they climb floor after floor after floor before the elevator opens on the floor just below the penthouse, which is Mr. Stark’s private suite. The floor below it turns out to be his personal lab.

“Whoa,” Peter breathes, looking around the room with wide eyes. Everything is pristine and white and every surface of every work station is covered in tools and contraptions that Peter doesn’t even recognize.

His fingers twitch to touch  _ everything _ , but Mr. Stark says, “Over here,” and leads Peter around the perimeter of the giant lab, all the way over to a small corner where there’s a microscope set up at a small desk, with pages stacked up next to it and microscope slides spilling around the work station. 

“Sit,” Mr. Stark says, and Peter sits very quickly on the stool at the station, looking up at Mr. Stark expectantly. Mr. Stark gestures towards the microscope and says, “Look.”

Peter looks. He knows right away what he’s looking at, because he’s seen it half a million times (at least) since he got bitten by a radioactive spider at the end of ninth grade. It’s a sample of his webbing.

“Uh,” Peter says.

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark agrees, in that haughty, too-fast-to-follow tone he uses sometimes. “You know what you’re looking at there, kid?” Peter’s not sure there’s a right answer to that, so he doesn’t say anything, and Mr. Stark says, “That’s a sample of Spider-Man’s webbing. How organic does that look to you?”

Again, Peter isn’t sure there’s a right answer. He says, “Um, I’m not — ” and Mr. Stark cuts him off before he can try to fumble his way into a real answer.

“Exactly,” he says, pointing at Peter. “It’s not. It’s not organic. That is some made-in-a-lab webbing right there. What I want to know, Parker, is how you managed to  _ improve it  _ without ever seeing this sample.”

Peter looks down at the microscope, and then back up at Mr. Stark, and flounders a little as he says, “Uh, I have seen this sample? I mean, not this sample, but. A sample. I have a microscope at home.”

Mr. Stark blinks at him. “You have a microscope at home.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, slowly. “Uh, I was just — trying to recreate this. I mean, it’s not like the microscope can tell me the exact measurements of chemicals used? So I’ve been experimenting, and…”

“And you made something even better,” Mr. Stark says, and leans back against the work station, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t seem to register it when he knocks a stack of paper and some of the slides onto the floor. “Huh.”

“Am I…” Peter starts, and Mr. Stark glances at him like  _ go ahead _ , so Peter goes ahead and says, “Am I in trouble?”

Mr. Stark stares at him, long and hard, and Peter fidgets uncomfortably. After a moment of tense silence, Mr. Stark says, “Yes, you are. You’re in trouble for not telling me you were so damn good with biochem.”

Peter blinks. “What?”

“I’ve had samples of this webbing in and out of the lab for the last six months,” Mr. Stark says, pushing off of the desk to pace back and forth. “Not one — not  _ one  _ — of my actual employees managed to get this close to recreating it. Why the hell were you hiding this from me? I ought to offer you a job on the spot.”

He says it like he’s very angry about it. Peter isn’t sure how to respond.

“I didn’t know you wanted it, Mr. Stark, sir,” Peter says, slowly. In actuality, he wouldn’t have used his insider information to get ahead in the company even if he  _ had  _ known, but now that Mr. Stark thinks he’s some kind of boy genius when it comes to recreating (his own) inventions, it’s not exactly immoral to use it to get ahead, right?  _ Right? _

“Didn’t know I — ” Mr. Stark mutters, cutting himself off. He doesn’t stop pacing. “Didn’t know I wanted it! That shit’s all over New York City and you didn’t think the _ largest tech conglomerate in the world _ would want to know how to recreate it?”

Peter squints at him. “Mr. Stark, sir, pardon me for asking, but...why do  _ you  _ want to recreate Spider-Man’s webbing so badly?”

Finally, Mr. Stark stops pacing, turning to stare at Peter head on. “Because,” he says, voice very firm and slightly deranged, “I want to prove that it’s manufactured and this guy isn’t just spitting webs out of his wrists like a damn bug.”

“O- _ kay _ ,” Peter says, and nods and nods and nods, and then looks back at the microscope and says, “Do you want me to, like, send you my notes?”

“No,” Mr. Stark snaps. “No, Peter Parker, I don’t want you to send me your notes. I want you to come work in my lab and show these idiots with their PhDs and their terminal studies degrees what a college junior can do with the right equipment and some lab time.”

Peter blinks. “Mr. Stark, sir, I’m a sophomore.”

“Even better,” Mr. Stark says, pointing at him. “Now, get out of here. Go back to the intern floor until I send for you to come publicly humiliate all of my lab techs.”

Peter gets out of there as fast as he can.

*

Peter isn’t sure who thought a Halloween-themed supervillain was a good idea, but it’s July and he’s watching pumpkin bombs explode in the air next to him, and he’s having a Bad Time.

“Oh, Spider-Man,” the Green Goblin crows, and a bat-shaped boomerang — much cooler than the Okay, Boomers, although Peter would never say that out loud — goes flying past Peter. He ducks below it when it goes flying back towards the Green Goblin. “Don’t you want a treat? I’ve got Starbursts!” 

This is punctuated by the bursting of another pumpkin bomb, right above Peter’s head, and he makes a hard jerk to the left to swing around the big, fancy office building they’re circling.

“I feel like that’s a trick,” Peter calls back over his shoulder, and the hair stands up on the back of his neck as he flies through the air, quickly dodging another razor bat. They even  _ sound  _ cooler than the Okay, Boomers. If Peter had been in charge of naming them, they would have been called, like, batterangs. 

The Green Goblin cackles madly behind him, and Peter turns another quick corner — the only thing he’s thinking right now is  _ get the unhinged man away from civilians before someone gets killed  _ — and slams full body into Iron Man. 

Of course he does.

“Hi, hey,” Peter yelps, and now he’s just...sticking to Iron Man’s chest. A ghost bomb explodes very close to them, and Peter swallows his pride and says, “Uh, a little help?”

Peter doesn’t have to see Mr. Stark’s face to know the man is rolling his eyes, even as he shoots a blast back in the direction of the Green Goblin. Peter takes this opportunity to keep moving, and as he swings over to another building, he shoots globs of web behind him, catching three different bombs. He misses one, which explodes right in front of Iron Man’s face, and yells, “Sorry, sir!” even though he actually thinks it’s kind of funny.

Mr. Stark seems to have the same idea of getting the Green Goblin as far away from civilization as is possible in New York City, so he veers off after Peter. Together, they make quick turns, leading the Green Goblin out of the downtown area, and Mr. Stark pauses to deflect some more pumpkin bombs and Peter swings around the side of a building and realizes all at once that Mr. Stark was not trying to get the Green Goblin out of the city — he was trying to get him to the rest of the Avengers.

Peter nearly trips over his own two feet when he comes to land in front of Captain America. Irritation flares in his gut, and he asks, “Are you going to try to take  _ this  _ out of my hands, too? Because the Green Goblin is kind of, like, my archnemesis. Everyone knows that.”

Captain America blinks at him. “Kid,” he starts, and then a ghost bomb explodes in between them, and there’s not a lot of talking after that. 

Between Peter, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Falcon (apparently all the other Avengers have more important things to worry about than the Green Goblin, which is fair, because Peter definitely could have handled it by himself), they’re able to take down the Green Goblin pretty quick. Hawkeye shoots his arrows, Falcon flies up to physically wrestle the Green Goblin, and Captain America throws his shield while Iron Man continues blasting him. Black Widow stands back, arms crossed over her chest, looking bored, and Peter webs the Green Goblin to the side of a building, where Captain America stalks over to remove his mask.

Norman Osborn, looking deranged, grins back at all of them and spits curses. Peter lands on his feet next to Black Widow —  _ Black Widow _ — and mimics her stance. 

“You did good,” she says to him, tilting her head in consideration as she watches the other Avengers attempt to wrangle Osborn into submission until SHIELD arrives to take him away. 

Peter blinks. “Really?” He can’t keep the excitement out of his voice, and Black Widow smirks as she turns her piercing gaze onto him.

“Really,” she says. “I’m pretty sure you could have handled Osborn on your own. Don’t tell Tony I said that.”

Peter panics a little. “Tony? I don’t — who’s Tony? I don’t know a Tony.” 

She arches an eyebrow, and Peter suddenly feels really, really hot under his suit. “Uh, do you — you mean, uh, Iron Man? Mr. Stark? Mr. Iron Man?”

“Sure,” Black Widow says, looking incredibly amused by the situation. “We just call him Tony, though.”

Peter’s face  _ burns _ , and he tries to deflect from his inability to pretend to be a normal human being by saying, “I think he hates me.”

“He hates that he can’t figure out who you are,” Black Widow says dismissively.

“Well,” Peter says, nodding, “that, and that he can’t figure out whether or not my webbing is real or manufactured.”

“That, too,” Black Widow agrees. SHIELD rolls up in a sleek black car, and Peter watches a flurry of agents manhandle the Green Goblin into said car. Black Widow says, “You should probably go before they try to bring you in, too. Technically vigilantism is still a crime.”

Which — she’s absolutely correct. And also, it’s suddenly four a.m., and Peter has been awake for about twenty-two hours and desperately needs some sleep.

“Yep, yeah, thank you, Miss Black Widow, ma’am,” he says, and tips an imaginary hat in her direction — and instantly regrets  _ that _ , for probably the rest of his life — and swings off, flying back to his and Ned’s crappy apartment in Brooklyn.

*

Peter ends up oversleeping.

He wakes up to a loud banging on the door, and flies out of bed, getting tangled in the sheets and hitting the floor with a  _ thump _ .

“Peter?” That’s MJ’s voice, muffled as she calls out to him from the hallway. “You okay?”

Peter’s alarm clock says it’s just after nine a.m. Normally, he’s been up for about three hours by now.

Peter scrambles to his feet, stumbling when the sheets twist around his ankles, and he finally shakes them off in the conjoined living/kitchen area. He opens the door in a rush, and there’s MJ, with her hair pinned out of her face, hand raised to knock on the door again. She stops, and stares at him, her cheeks turning bright red. “Uh — you didn’t come to work, so. I was worried.” She carefully averts her gaze, and Peter realizes abruptly that he’s not wearing anything except his boxers.

“Uh,” Peter says, blinking down at his Human Torch boxers. “I can — do you want coffee?”

She still doesn’t look at him when she says, “I’ve already had a quad shot today, so — yes, absolutely.”

“Cool,” Peter says, and motions for her to come into the apartment. “I’ll just, um. Get dressed.”

He flees into the safety of his bedroom, and changes quickly. When he comes back out, MJ is standing at the kitchen counter, pouring coffee into his collectible Incredible Hulk tumbler. “Your Starbucks is at your work station,” she says, glancing at him as he enters the room. Her cheeks are still a little pink. “I guess you want this for the road?”

Peter nods, and she gets another tumbler — politely not commenting on the fact that it’s a Spider-Man collectible — and fills that up, too. When she hands it to Peter, he clears his throat and says, “You were — worried about me?”

Her cheeks get red again. “I — yeah. I mean. You’ve never been late before, so — ”

“MJ,” Peter says, interrupting her. “I really — I really like you. Is that okay?”

She blinks, surprised, but then this tiny little smile graces her lips, and she nods, and sets her tumbler down on the counter, winding her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a kiss. Peter spills a little bit of his own coffee on her jeans when he goes to grab her by the hips, and she only giggles into the kiss. 

When they part, she glances out over the living room, her cheeks delightfully flushed and her lips rosy from the kiss. Her eyebrows arch in surprise, and she says, “Peter, is that — is that a Spider-Man suit on your couch?”

*

They show up at the lab at ten o’ six, holding hands, to a chorus of clapping and cheers form the other interns. 

*

A week later, Peter brings Mr. Stark a working prototype of the Okay, Boomer, and Mr. Stark invites Black Widow —  _ Black! Widow! _ — to come test it out. 

“Nat,” Mr. Stark says, with a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder, “this is Peter Parker, resident whiz kid. He created your boomerang knives and is going to be the one to finally recreate Spider-Man’s webbing. Peter, this is Natasha Romanoff.”

Natasha nods, and says, “Spider-Man’s webbing, huh?”

Peter opens his mouth to answer, but Mr. Stark speaks first. “Yeah, the kid has damn near recreated it already. He’s gotten closer than any of my actual employees.”

“Hm,” Natasha says, and, “Are we going to test the knives?”

Peter, very carefully, hands the Okay, Boomer to Natasha by the blade. She grips the handle, weighing it in her hand, and he says, “Uh, just, you know — be careful? It hasn’t really been tested because — I’m terrified of cutting off my own hand, honestly, so — not that  _ you  _ would cut off your hand or anything, but like, maybe you would — I don’t know, like, nick your fingers or something? Not that you’re not more than capable, I just — ”

He cuts himself off because she’s already throwing the Okay, Boomer. It flies through the air in a smooth, clean line, slices the skin of Hawkeye’s bicep where he’s got his back turned to her in conversation with Falcon in civilian clothing, and then turns in a graceful arc, flying back between Falcon and Hawkeye, grazing Falcon’s neck, and she catches it in swift, deft fingers. 

“Not bad,” she says, eyeballing the Okay, Boomer appreciatively. 

“Jesus Christ, Nat,” Hawkeye says, turning around to glare at her. He grips his bicep, and Peter sees blood between his fingers. Falcon, for his part, just looks a little stunned as he lifts his fingers to touch the shallow cut on his neck. 

“I barely scratched you,” Natasha says. She turns to Peter. “What are you going to call it?”

“Call it?” Peter repeats dumbly.

Her eyebrows rise. “Tony likes to trademark names. What’s this called?”

Peter’s cheeks are on fire when he says, “Uh, the other interns and I have been calling it the, uh, Okay, Boomer.”

Natasha laughs. Mr. Stark rubs his forehead and says, “Jesus Christ.”

“If you’re so good at designing weaponry,” Natasha says, turning and flinging the Okay, Boomer again (this time avoiding hitting Hawkeye and Falcon, who are watching her warily), “why haven’t you made any for Spider-Man?”

“Uh,” Peter says, and his mind flat out blanks. He stares at her, watches her catch the Okay, Boomer and then toss it again, and finally comes up with, “Spider-Man? Who? I don’t know him, why would I make weapons for him? He probably has, like — a team of people making weapons for him. I’m just assuming! He wouldn’t need some, like, dorky intern — obviously he’s, like, a superhero, so — ”

“Oh, my God,” Mr. Stark says.

Natasha smiles pleasantly. “Tony,” she says, her gaze flicking away from Peter, “why didn’t you tell us Spider-Man is one of your interns?”

Mr. Stark gapes at her. From across the room, Hawkeye calls, “Alternative question: why is Spider-Man a twelve year old?”

“I’m nineteen!” Peter protests. “And I’m not Spider-Man! I’m just an intern!”

“No, no,” Mr. Stark says, staring at Peter like he’s never seen him before, “this makes sense. How else would you be able to improve the webbing formula?”

“Uh,” Peter says, wincing, “because I’m...smart?”

Mr. Stark just stares at him. And then he shouts, “I  _ knew  _ it was chemically engineered!”

*

“Wait, so why didn’t you agree to become an Avenger when we asked?”

“Uh, because I was fifteen?”

“That’s a surprisingly mature decision for a fifteen year old to make.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

“Natasha figured you out in two seconds, kid, don’t flatter yourself.”

*

Peter and MJ are holding hands when they enter the lab at eight a.m. They turn the light on, and the other four interns leap up from their respective hiding places below their work stations and shout, “Surprise!”

MJ screams. Harley fires off a confetti popper, and the smoke alarm goes off, triggering the sprinkler system and dousing them all in water. 

“Uh,” Peter says, “Happy Birthday?”

MJ announces, “I liked you all better when you were terrified of me,” and she kisses Peter, tasting like coffee.

“Get a room,” Cassie calls, laughing, and when they pull apart, Ned gives Peter a thumbs up. 

“We should call someone,” Peter decides, looking up at the water still spraying out of the ceiling. “I feel like the sprinkler system is a little too sensitive if the confetti popper was enough to trigger it.”

Shuri considers Peter, and then, a slow smile spreading across her face, challenges, “What, you don’t think you can fix it yourself?”

*

Peter breaks the sprinkler system. Mr. Stark has to be called down to the intern’s lab, and finds them all soaked through with chattering teeth, Peter standing on top of a desk chair that he balanced on top of Ned’s desk so he could fiddle with the alarm system. 

“Jesus Christ,” Mr. Stark says, and, “You’re all fired.”

Peter goes to climb down from his precarious perch, loses his balance, and sends the desk chair rolling right off the desk. He hits his head on the edge of the desk on the way down, and is pretty sure he’s dead.

“Oh, my God,” Harley says.

“He’s fine,” Shuri dismisses. “He’s Spider-Man, he has super healing.”

“ _ What _ ,” Peter croaks out, and he pushes himself up on the palms of his hands to glare at her. He can feel blood rolling in warm rivulets down his neck and into his shirt, but he can also feel his skin already starting to knit itself back together.

“What?” Shuri repeats, blinking at him. “Did you think I didn’t know?”

Peter opens his mouth, and she scoffs, speaking over him, saying, “You fool. I know everything.”

Peter looks at Ned and then MJ and then Mr. Stark. In unison, all three of them say, “I didn’t tell her.”

“Oh, my God,” Peter says, and he lays back down on the floor, still getting pelted by water.

“If it makes you feel better,” MJ says, crouching down on the floor next to him, her hand a warm pressure on his chest over his heart, “I’m pretty sure Shuri’s a spy from Wakanda.”

“I am,” Shuri confirms. “I’m only here to check out our competitor.”

“What the fuck,” Mr. Stark says, and then he turns and leaves the room.

Quietly, Cassie says, “I think we broke him.”

All six interns burst into laughter.

*

The day the interns find out Michelle Jones’s age is the worst day of Peter’s life. All things considered, the days that follow end up being pretty spectacular.


End file.
